Support the Tropes

Why is the World's Greatest Orator such a dreadful rhetorician?

By

James Taranto

June 23, 2011

(Note: We're going fishing tomorrow, to return Monday. In the meantime, you may find occasional witticisms at our Twitter feed.)

Not that anybody's asking, but no, we didn't watch President Obama's speech last night announcing his latest recalibration of his Afghanistan policy to adapt to the changing conditions of the 2012 electoral battlefield. It's been a long time since we found this president's speeches worth staying home to see.

To judge by the reviews we've read, last night's performance was a political failure, precisely because it was so transparently political. Obama didn't go nearly far enough to satisfy the isolationists who want a complete pullout yesterday, but he went far enough in their direction that Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified to Congress today: "The President's decisions are more aggressive and incur more risk than I was originally prepared to accept."

It's possible that the president is more attuned to popular sentiment than are the generals, the activists and the commentators who are concerned with the actual merits of the policy. Afghanistan is not uppermost in most Americans' minds. Undeniably there is, among the general public, a general sense of war-weariness, a drift toward isolationism, which contributed to Obama's election as president. On the other hand, that drift could easily lurch in the other direction if the situation in Afghanistan worsens, and especially if terrorists hit America again. To the extent that the Obama pullback makes that more likely, it puts his re-election prospects as well as the country at greater risk.

Anyway, if Obama is following popular sentiment, he certainly isn't leading it. And has he ever managed to do that? The New York Times's incoherent mishmash of an editorial on the speech tries to damn him with faint praise: "At his best, the president can be hugely persuasive." But even that praise is highly unpersuasive. True, Obama was persuasive enough to get elected president--but that was with a hapless opponent, a dour nepotist as his intraparty rival, a public fed up with the other party, and a media-driven cult of personality.

Part of that cult of personality is the myth that he is the World's Greatest Orator, a myth the Times evokes with its hazy recollections of times when he was "highly persuasive." When was he highly persuasive? When he sold the public on the so-called stimulus and ObamaCare? When he campaigned for Democrats in 2010? When he rallied public support for his last change in Afghan policy, an increase in the U.S. troop presence?

The truth is, there's an Emperor's New Clothes aspect to Obama's supposed status as the World's Greatest Orator. We've heard the myth of his eloquence over and over, yet he keeps "unexpectedly" making gaffes or tin-eared statements. Here's the big one from his speech last night: "America, it is time to focus on nation building here at home."

The term "nation building" was popularized by George W. Bush during a 2000 presidential debate with then-Vice President Al Gore. The soon-to-be president used it as a term of derision:

The vice president and I have a disagreement about the use of troops. He believes in nation building. I would be very careful about using our troops as nation builders. I believe the role of the military is to fight and win war and therefore prevent war from happening in the first place. . . .

If we don't have a clear vision of the military, if we don't stop extending our troops all around the world and nation building missions, then we're going to have a serious problem coming down the road, and I'm going to prevent that. I'm going to rebuild our military power. It's one of the major priorities of my administration.

Bush himself was subsequently accused of "nation building" in Afghanistan and Iraq, after the attacks of 9/11 caused a dramatic change in the course of his presidency. Whatever the merits of those criticisms, though, Bush's view of "nation building" as a vain, costly and wasteful distraction from national security seems to have prevailed.

So why in the world would Obama expect a call for "nation building at home" to resonate? Not only is nation building a discredited idea, but the implication is that the U.S. is a pathetic wreck of a country like Kosovo or Afghanistan or Iraq. Undeniably, America has its problems, but many of them are caused or aggravated by an obtrusive government. We don't need to be "built," just left alone to maintain and reinvigorate ourselves.

The answer appears to be that once again, the World's Greatest Orator is taking his rhetorical cues from the Worst Writer in the English Language. Remember the "Sputnik moment," the trope in Obama's State of the Union Address that was supposed to inspire us to get excited about whatever boondoggles he's pushing this year? Neither did we; we have to delve into our archives to be reminded of the details.

ENLARGE

World's worst wordsmith
FilmMagic

But we remembered who used that forgettable phrase first: Thomas Friedman of the New York Times. And Commentary's Abe Greenwald reminds us that "nation building at home" is another of Friedman's tropes. On Nov. 28, 2010, Reason's Matt Welch noted that in Friedman's column of that day, "the phrase 'nation-building at home' makes two appearances, 'nation-building in America' makes two more, and there's a fifth 'nation-building' in there, presumably for collectors."

Noting that Friedman had been beating that drum for 2½ years, Welch titled his post "Thomas L. Friedman: Nation-Building at Home Just as Crucial a Slogan Now as it Was 14 Columns Ago." Make that 15. On March 23, Friedman wrote: "If the president is ready to take some big, hard, urgent, decisions, shouldn't they be first about nation-building in America, not in Libya?"

Still, that's only one column in almost seven months, vs. almost one every other month in the period before Welch noted it. And Friedman has not mentioned Sputnik in any column since we called him on that one after the State of the Union.

How can anyone take seriously Barack Obama's status as the World's Greatest Orator when he uses Friedmanisms that have become so Friedmanistic that even Friedman avoids them?

In 1940, Churchill appeared before the House of Commons and described Britain's goal in World War II: "I can answer in one word: victory; victory at all costs, victory despite all terror; victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival."

This hyperbolic rube was too unsophisticated to appreciate that the goal doesn't apply to overseas contigency [sic] operations or kinetic military actions.

It's true that today's language of war, especially but not only on the political left, is considerably less Manichaean than in Churchill's time. But Kirsanow's post, oddly enough, made us think of Al Gore, who has a jaw-droppingly overwrought piece in Rolling Stone about--well, do we really need to tell you the topic? Sample:

Admittedly, the contest over global warming is a challenge for the referee because it's a tag-team match, a real free-for-all. In one corner of the ring are Science and Reason. In the other corner: Poisonous Polluters and Right-wing Ideologues.

The referee--in this analogy, the news media--seems confused about whether he is in the news business or the entertainment business. Is he responsible for ensuring a fair match? Or is he part of the show, selling tickets and building the audience? The referee certainly seems distracted: by Donald Trump, Charlie Sheen, the latest reality show--the list of serial obsessions is too long to enumerate here.

But whatever the cause, the referee appears not to notice that the Polluters and Ideologues are trampling all over the "rules" of democratic discourse.

It goes on and on in this moronic vein. Now we don't read Rolling Stone, and indeed often get it mixed up with High Times. Maybe this Gore piece is well tailored to the intellectual level of the readership, Still, you would think that left-liberals with above-average IQs would be embarrassed by this sort of boneheaded Manichaeism, especially when it is being offered in the name of science--oh, excuse us, "Science."

One factor contributing to misleading or outright incorrect reports about Palin is the reality that she mostly refuses to speak to reporters unless the interaction is on her own terms, eschewing most outlets in favor of participating in interviews with, say, Fox News' Greta Van Susteren or Real Clear Politics--in other words, with those who won't necessarily challenge her or, depending on which side of the fence you're sitting, attack her.

In the process, some news outlets are left to either speculate about Palin's plans or refer to unreliable sources, which can and does result to incorrect information. And that certainly benefits Palin, because it reinforces her purported mistrust of the media and her belief that, in many cases, members of the media are less than competent and/or present a clear bias against her.

We must've missed the day in journalism class where they told us to just make stuff up when someone wouldn't give us an interview. The backstory here is that there were a bunch of reports yesterday to the effect that Palin's bus tour was ending prematurely. It turns out she had to take a break for jury duty.

Though she may be tempting fate. Last night she tweeted: "*Sigh* Reports of Tour Demise Are Greatly Exaggerated." Mark Twain said the same thing about reports of his death, and where is he now? Dead.

Less Than Zero David Brooks of the New York Times relays some wisdom on international relations:

After a thorough two-year review of U.S. aid efforts in Afghanistan, the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee emphasized, "The unintended consequences of pumping large amounts of money into a war zone cannot be underestimated."

Really? Let's try:

We estimate that the unintended consequences of pumping large amounts of money into a war zone are zero.

There, did we underestimate them?

Out on a Limb

"Stocks Are Either Too Cheap or Actually Overvalued"--video title, MarketWatch.com, June 21

"Obama Raising Doubts About His Credibility as Commander-in-Chief"--headline, Commentary website, June 23

Anything I Can Do, You Can Do Better?

"We men just make bad decisions. We can't help it. We're men. Women, on the other hand, do almost everything better."--David Weidner, MarketWatch.com, June 14

"Women Flock to Take Horse-Semen Shots"--headline, Dominion Post (Wellington, New Zealand), June 22

The Enduring Influence of Anthony Weiner "Police in Indiana say they arrested an Amish man who arrived in a horse-drawn buggy for a presumed rendezvous with a 12-year-old girl to whom he had sent sexually explicit cell phone messages," CNN reports:

Officers arrested 21-year-old William R. Yoder on Wednesday, June 15, after he rode up to the Takathemoke Restaurant in Milroy, Indiana, and approached an undercover agent.

"The suspect arrived, in a one-horse carriage as he said he would, was identified by the undercover officer confirming his identity and was taken into custody without incident," said Connersville, Indiana, police Detective Craig Pennington.

Yoder was taken to Fayette County Jail, about 60 miles east of Indianapolis, where in a videotaped statement he confessed that he sent video messages, naked pictures of himself and lewd text messages. He posted bail June 16.

That reminds us of a joke: What goes "Clop, clop, clop, clop, bang!"?

An Amish father visiting the dude who's been sexting his 12-year-old daughter!

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com.